An Arty, Too-chatty `Two Girls And A Guy'

April 24, 1998|By MALCOLM JOHNSON; Courant Film Critic

Robert Downey Jr. again demonstrates his virtuosity and sensitivity as an actor in ``Two Girls and a Guy,'' which makes his personal struggles all the more troubling. Yet Downey's comical classical singing, his expressive piano playing, his wise-guy improvisations and a furious scene from ``Hamlet'' cannot save James Toback's chamber film from its irritating self-indulgences.

Though filmed by Barry Markowitz with considerable variety, Toback's new art film feels more like a small, off-Broadway play -- and not a good one -- than a movie. Its three characters talk endlessly, though Downey also performs, as his Blake is supposed to be New York's most underemployed big talent.

The three characters, Blake and the two girls, Heather Graham's serene blond Carla and Natasha Gregson Warner's gabby, antic, brunette Lou, spend part of a day together at each other's throats after Toback sets up an odd, but hardly impossible situation that will make all two- timing Lotharios sqirm. Blake, it seems, has been out on the Coast for a gig. Without warning him of their plans, both Carla and Lou wind up on the doorstep of Blake's New York loft.

Being a compulsive talker, Lou gabs away about her boyfriend. Minutes later, it becomes clear to both women that they have been sharing a man for nearly a year. Lou boldly decides to invade the lordling's domain, scaling a fire escape and smashing in a window with a handy flowerpot. Then she buzzes Carla in.

After the women compare notes on Blake's soulful protestations of love, the guy arrives. Hearing him coming, both Carla and Lou hide themselves in the surprisingly posh, two-level loft (this is another Manhattan apartment no marginally employed artist could possibly afford, unless Blake has a trust fund or full support from his adoring, and adored, mother). Blake sings an oratorio, taking both baritone and soprano parts. He calls up Carla and sweet talks her, leaves a less fullsome message for Lou.

As Blake performs for his most worshipful audience -- himself -- Toback cuts to Graham's bemused face. At last, she reveals herself, gets a bit of interrogation about how she was able to enter the house and is asked about the broken window. Blake also turns on his line about not being able to have sex with anyone other than the beauteous Carla. At last, Lou emerges from her closet and confronts Blake with his claim that all women other than gorgeous Carla were ugly to him.

For a time, ``Two Girls and a Guy'' turns into a lowbrow, trendy, '90s variation on Jean-Paul Sartre's ``No Exit,'' in which a man is trapped for all eternity with two women, a young beauty and a lesbian. For a time, the women abuse Blake, then join together to get plastered on tequila. Periodically, Blake telephones his mother and worries aloud about her health, for her voice sounds terribly low to him.

At the heart of the film are the questions of whether Blake truly loves either or both of the women, and of the depth of their feelings for him. Also in play are the nature of men and habits of modern women. Soon, Blake is hearing confessions that wound his male vanity, after he reveals that not even two lovers were enough for him.

Toback, a veteran writer-director whose career in both capacities goes back to the 1977 ``Fingers'' (he also wrote the screenplay for ``Bugsy''), offers a few surprises as his film moves forward, and his ending is moving and powerful. But though ``Two Girls and a Guy'' is relatively brief, it seems to take at least 9 1/2 weeks to get fom Blake's doorstep to his secret heart.

Rated R, this film contains rude talk, and one rather steamy love scene.

TWO GIRLS AND A GUY, directed and written by James Toback; director of photography, Barry Markowitz; music supervisor, Barry Cole; production designer, Kevin Thompson; edited by Alan Oxman; produced by Edward R. Pressman and Chris Hanley; executive producers, Michael Mailer and Daniel Bigel. A Fox Searchlight presentation of an Edward R. Pressman production in association with Muse Production, opening today at Cinema City, Hartford. 92 minutes.